


1-1 Gem Glow

by iippo



Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, alternative universe, first episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24838216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iippo/pseuds/iippo
Summary: Steven thinks his favorite ice cream sandwiches are the trick to summoning his magic shield, but he learns otherwise when facing off with an acid-spewing insect monster.
Series: Steven Universe Renaissance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796686
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1-1 Gem Glow

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate universe. See series page for more information.

A loud cry rang out through the seaside town of Beach City, Delmarwa, USA.

“Nooooooooo!”

The source of the desperation was located inside the Big Donut, a local donut shop, where a young boy by the name of Steven Universe stared into the cold, uncaring void of the ice cream freezer.

“This can’t be happening! This has to be a dream! Lars! Lars!” Steven ran to the counter and falling to his knees, grabbed Lars Barriga, the teenaged employee of the Big Donut, around the waist. “Please tell me I’m dreaming!”

“Get off me man, I’m stocking here,” Lars grumbled and walked off, letting Steven flop to the floor.

Sadie Miller had been observing the exchange from behind the counter and leaned forward to see Steven on the floor. “I’m sorry Steven. I guess they stopped making them,” she said. Despite being only in her late teens, Sadie had worked in the Big Donut a long time and had seen products introduced and discontinued a fair few times.

“Stopped making them?!” Steven sat up on his knees and looked towards the ice cream freezer. The experience of a favourite ice cream being discontinued was new to him. “Why in the world would they stop making Cookie Cats?! They’re only the most scrumptious and delicious ice-cream sandwich ever made! Don’t they have laws for this?!” He threw back his head and arms to show just how much he was suffering from the injustice.

Lars was unphased. “Tough bits, man. Nobody buys them anymore. I guess they couldn’t compete with Lion Lickers,” he said while, in an uncharacteristic burst of work morale, he continuing to stock the shelves of the shop.

Steven groaned. “Not Lion Lickers! Nobody likes them!” He marched over to the lion-themed display case. “They don’t even look like lions! Kids these days – I’ll tell ya what!” He fumed.

Lars chuckled. “Well if you miss your wimpy ice cream so much, why don’t you make some with your _magic belly button_?” He mocked Steven as he walked to the backroom, laughing.

“That’s not how it works, Lars!” Steven yelled at Lars’ vanishing back. “…Right?” He asked himself, lifting his t-shirt and looking at the gem embedded into his stomach. He prodded his stomach with both his hands and let it jiggle.

Steven went back to the empty Cookie Cat display case. “Oh sweet Cookie Cats,” he said tenderly and drew a shape of a Cookie Cat on the freezer glass with his finger. “With your crunchy cookie outside and your icy creamy insides… You were too good for this world.” He kissed the drawing on the freezer window, and gently caressed the container.

“Umm… Steven?” Sadie called from the counter but Steven ignored her. “Do you want to take the freezer with you?” Without letting go of the freezer, Steven turned his head to look at Sadie and with tears in his eyes, he nodded.

\- - -

Steven ran home to his house - nestled by the hillside overlooking the beach - with his new Cookie Cat freezer. He ran up the steps to the front door and slammed the screen door open, yelling: “Hey Amethyst! You won’t believe this!”

He was immediately attacked by a large, green Centipeetle monster with a gaping maw that had a huge, single eyeball at the back of its throat. Steven fell on his back, but managed to push the Centipeetle away from his face just in time before it snapped its jaws at him. All he could do was keep the monster at arm’s length, when a black and purple whip suddenly wrapped around the monster’s upper body and it was pulled away from him.

“’Sup Steven?” Amethyst greeted him from the other end of the whip and yanked the monster across the air, poofing it into nothingness. She flipped her long flowing white hair, as if eliminating monsters was nothing – which to her it was, since fighting monsters was what Amethyst did every day.

Steven noticed that the beach house was crawling with monsters just like the one Amethyst had destroyed. “Awesome! What are these things?”

Amethyst was hard at work destroying the monsters. “Sorry dude, I’ll get these Centipeetles out of your place soon. I think they’re trying to get to the temple,” Amethyst explained while continuing to fight.

The beach house – built by Steven’s dad so that Steven could be closer to Amethyst as his gem powers were developing – was constructed so that it was an extension of the main entrance to the Crystal Gems’ home base, the Crystal Temple. In front of the temple door – which could only be opened by gem powers – was a warp pad, a piece of magical gem teleport technology. Around the entrance was Steven’s kitchen/living room -combo, with steps leading to the loft where Steven slept and played video games.

“Aw. You don't have to get rid of them. They’re really cool,” Steven said while following a Centipeetle crawling across the room towards the temple door. It spat acid on the wooden floor, burning a hole. Amethyst and Steven looked down the hole, and Amethyst grabbed the gem monster with her whip and cracked it against the ceiling, poofing the monster.

“I don’t get it, these things don’t have gems... How can that be?” Amethyst muttered and picked her nose.

Steven spotted a Centipeetle raiding his fridge. “Hey! Get out of there!” He ran to the fridge, startling the monster and causing it to run away. “Go on! Shoo! Shoo!” He looked at the damage in the fridge. “Aw! They got into everything! Not cool!”

Amethyst kept poofing the last Centipeetles when something in the fridge caught Steven’s eye. The freezer section of the fridge was full of Cookie Cats.

“No way. I-it can't be! Wha-where did you get these?! I thought they stopped making them!” Steven stared into the freezer, starry-eyed.

“I heard that too, and since I knew they were your favorite, I went out and stole a bunch for you!” Amethyst exclaimed with excitement, now that the house was monster-free again, for now. She hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter.

“Oohhhhhhhh!” Steven yelled, and transitioned his shout to a song; the Cookie Cat jingle: 

“He's a frozen treat with an all new taste! 'cause he came to this planet from outer space! A refugee of an interstellar war! But now he's at your local grocery store! Cookie Cat! He's a pet for your tummy! Cookie Cat! He's super duper yummy! Cookie Cat! He left his family behind! Cookie Caaaaat! Now available at Gurgens off Route 109!”

Amethyst cracked up laughing and kicked her legs against the counter.

“I can't believe you did this,” Steven said looking at Amethyst. “I’m gonna save these forever! Right after I eat this one. Hello, old friend.” He chomped down and closed his eyes, savoring every second. “Oh, so good! I like to eat the ears first…” He explained in between bites.

Steven’s gem began to glow.

“Uh, Steven...” Amethyst said and pointed at the front of his shirt.

Steven looked down. “Wha-? My gem!”

Amethyst was excited. “Quick, try and summon your weapon!” She urged him.

“I don’t know how!” Steven yelled and started to panic. He was straining and skipping from foot to foot. The light from his gem grew dimmer. “Ah, it’s fading! How do I make it come back?!” Amethyst felt the panic spreading to her too, but forced herself to stay cool.

“I dunno! Just... try not to poop yourself,” she said.

The gem glow faded away. They both sighed and Steven flopped to the floor.

“Aww, I was really close that time!” Steven whined. He put the half-eaten Cookie Cat back to its wrapper. “Can you just explain how to summon a weapon?”

“Umm, yeah, sure. Later maybe.” Amethyst said, hesitant. The truth was that she had known how to summon her weapon from the moment she had emerged; no one had taught her how to do it. It came to her naturally and she had no idea how to explain to someone else how it was done.

\- - -

Later in the afternoon Steven found Amethyst having a donut behind the Big Donut. “Amethyst!” He yelled and ran to her. “Can you teach me to summon my weapon now? I really want to start practicing!”

“Listen Steven, all that practice stuff is no fun. Whenever I need to summon my weapon, it just happens,” Amethyst explained, summoned her whip and snapped a garbage container cleanly in half.

“See? Didn’t try at all.”

Right at that moment Lars came out of the Big Donut to take some trash out and saw the broken dumpster. “Huh?! Again?!” He freaked out.

\- - -

Steven racked his brain all day trying to practice summoning his weapon without practicing, but getting nowhere he finally decided on a different approach. Finding Amethyst at the kitchen again, he approached her to explain his idea.

“I think my best bet is to recreate what happened the last time my gem glowed. So... you were sitting on the counter,” he directed and she hopped to sit on the kitchen island. “And I think your arms were crossed?”

Amethyst crossed her arms. ”O-kay, your majesty,” she said.

Steven grabbed the half-eaten cookie cat from the freezer. “Then I took a bite of this Cookie Cat. Oh, wait! I sang the song first.” Steven started to speed-run through the song. “Uh, he’s a frozen treat, all new taste, interstellar war, now available at Gurgen’s.”

The mood felt distinctly flat.

“Aww, it was funnier last time,” Steven sighed. He lifted his shirt to look at his gem, but there was no hint of a glow.

“Maybe I’m not a real Crystal Gem.”

“Of course you are!” Amethyst cheered with a hint of panic in her voice. “And, you’re fun to have around even if your gem _is_ useless!”

Steven’s face fell.

“I... mean, we couldn’t be the Crystal Gem _s_ if it was just me! Right?” She corrected frantically.

Steven smiled a little. “Yeah... And even if I don't have powers, I've still got... Cookie Cat!” He held the ice cream triumphantly in the air, and then took a hearty chomp out of it. “Mmm, so good...!”

While he was savoring the taste with his eyes closed, his gem began to emanate a powerful glow, and a shield began to emerge from the light. 

Amethyst gasped. “Steven! Your, weapon!” She croaked, as she felt something catching in her throat: the shield was identical to the shield summoned by Rose Quartz, Steven’s late mom and Amethyst’s only fellow gem friend ever.

Steven cracked his eyes, then snapped them wide open. “Whoa, what?! I get a shield?!” The shield was hanging in the air in front of him, connected to his gem with a beam of light. Steven was so excited he jumped and punched the air and shouted “Awww yeah!”

The sudden movement made the shield manifest fully in its physical form and it shot out away from Steven like a cork popping from a bottle. It ricocheted around the room, finally lodging itself into the TV, shattering the screen.

Amethyst burst out laughing, kicking her legs at the side of the counter.

Steven stared at the room in astonishment at what just happened, then remembered he was still holding the ice cream. “Huh? Cookie Cat? ...I summon my weapon by eating ice cream!” Steven declared his conclusion.

His excitement was cut short by a deep rumble that shook the entire house.

“What was that?” Steven asked.

A gigantic shadowy shape scuttered upwards past the window, climbing on top of the house. Steven and Amethyst both ran outside. A Centipeetle twenty times larger than the ones that had been in the house was climbing up the cliff face towards the lighthouse above the temple. 

“Stay in the house Steven,” Amethyst yelled and jumped up to go fight the monster, leaving Steven behind.

“No way, I’m coming too!” Steven said even though Amethyst couldn’t hear him, and he went inside. He grabbed all the Cookie Cats from the freezer, a ton of extension cords and the Cookie Cat display freezer he’d got that morning from the Big Donut. He ran back out to join Amethyst.

Meanwhile Amethyst’s fight with the gem monster had turned south. After slapping the Centipeetle with her whip several times without much effect, the monster had become so enraged it had managed to chase Amethyst down to the beach. She took cover behind a stone hand fragment while the Centipeetle drenched it in acid, slowly melting the stone. “I really could use Steven’s shield right about now,” she thought to herself, trying to think of what to do next.

The acid attack stopped when a stone hit the monster in the head.

“Hey!” Steven yelled, and slammed the Cookie Cat freezer to the ground. “Leave her alone!”

“Steven no!” Amethyst yelled as the Centipeetle turned to ran towards Steven.

Steven took a bite from a Cookie Cat, and defiantly mumbled through the food in his mouth: “Cookie Cat Crystal Combo powers — activate!” He lifted his shirt – but there was no shield. The monster was getting closer.

“Uh-oh! Aaaah! Amethyst!” Steven yelled as he realised his predicament, grabbed the freezer and ran further back.

But even though the monster was focusing on Steven, it kept attacking Amethyst with the snapping-claw in its tail.

“I’ll save you Steven!” Amethyst yelled, but then had to dodge the tail-snapper again, which took out half of the stone she was hiding behind. “After… I save myself first!”

Steven ate several more Cookie Cats, mourning their loss but thinking that the sacrifice had to be made. His stomach started to turn from all the ice cream – but not his gem, it stayed stubbornly pink. “Why isn’t it working?”

The Centipeetle shot Steven with a stream of acid and he had to dive out of the way to save himself.

Amethyst managed to tie the monsters tail-snapper shut with her whip. “Steven!” She yelled frantically, unable to see how he was doing from the monster and the dust that was getting kicked up all around.

While Amethyst managed to hold the Centipeetle still for a moment, the dust settled enough for Steven to see the casualties of the raging battle. A few paces away from him lay the half-melted remains of the Cookie Cat display freezer. And its fully-melted Cookie Cat contents.

Steven gasped. “No… No, no, no, no!” He ran to the freezer. “Cookie Cat!” He tried to pick up the device but electricity was still streaming to it from the extension cords and he almost got shocked. “He’s... a pet for your tummy,” he said, closing his eyes in determination. He had sacrificed so much already, and he was ready to sacrifice it all if it meant saving his family.

“Cookie Cat, he’s super. Duper. Yummy!” He turned around and yelled the last word defiantly towards the Centipeetle monster. “Cookie Cat!” He picked up the freezer by the extension cord and brandished it like a lasso, and as he ran towards the monster, he yelled: “He left his family behind! Cookie Caaaaaaaaat!” At that he flung the broken freezer crackling with electricity at the Centipeetle, hitting her straight in the back of the head and shocking her. As the monster screeched in pain, Steven flopped to his knees in the sand, and finished the song. “Now available... nowhere.”

Amethyst had let go of her whip just in time so as to not also get shocked. As the monster screeched in pain, Amethyst jumped into action, and as soon as the flow of electricity stopped, she launched an attack on the Centipeetle. The attack disrupted the monster’s form in a poof of a cloud and Amethyst secured its gem, the only thing left of it, in a bubble and sent it off.

Amethyst turned to see if Steven saw her cool moves, but then noticed that Steven was kneeling in the sand. She rushed over to him, worried he was injured. Steven covered a Cookie Cat wrapper with sand, placed a leaf on the mound and closed his teary eyes.

“Farewell, sweet Cookie Cats. I’ll always remember the time we spent together.” His eulogy was interrupted by the loud rumbling caused by the turning of his stomach. “Shh, hush now,” he said placing a finger on his lips.

Amethyst crouched next to him. “Are you crying?” She asked.

“Only a little!” Steven shouted in reply.

Amethyst sat on the ground next to him and laughed, “Well, I guess your powers don’t come from ice cream! But I’m sure you’ll find a way to summon your weapon.”

“Yeah,” Steven answered. “I’m okay. I just-“ his stomach turned again with a loud rumble. “Ugh, I think I ate too many Cookie Cats.”

Amethyst laughed and Steven joined her with a nervous chuckle, then he doubled over and retched.


End file.
